Sanders Sides (and more) One Shots

I'm Agoraphobic and Not Okay

Virgil never chose to feel comfortable in more isolated areas than the areas where his family wanted to leave him to make new friends (not counting school). He never asked to be prone to panic attacks that made him look like he was reenacting Chuck McGill's personal hell caused by the alleged allergy to electricity. Heck, if Virgil had to choose what fate would have in store would him and what he would carry, he'd double down on the confidence and remove his multiple layers of anxiety altogether; sure he'd possibly be vulnerable to those who would want to take him for granted, but at least it would decrease the amount of people who would shove pressure onto him.

Virgil found time to look up some anxiety disorders that he thought might make sense. He crossed some off his mental list and added some to his notebook, but there was one form of anxiety that always stood out to him: agoraphobia. What made that particular anxiety disorder stand out to him was that it wasn't a Wikipedia article recommendation that led him to the term, but rather a randomly selected song on his phone.

He kept the song on repeat and looked up the term online. As he did so, the moments where he would be at a Best Buddies field trip or meeting and try to make excuses to be alone or leave the area and feel his world darken around him if he failed to leave made sense to him.

As glad as he felt that someone out there knew what it felt like albeit in a different setting from him, the likelihood that he actually had any form of anxiety, especially agoraphobia, made Virgil feel horrible. Virgil might, as his mother would say, "act like he's allergic to interaction", but that didn't mean there weren't some things he did wanted to do out there in the world.

Virgil used various forms of art to distract himself from his dark thoughts and thought of it as a way to mold the world into something more tolerable. Sure, he sent his artwork to various museums, but he always wished he could suck it up and go to one of those museums, acknowledge the visitors who actually react to his work and experience some dopamine from his achievements. Unfortunately, his lack of the ability to be like the rest of the world around him kept such dreams from being a reality to him.

His most recent artwork was something he worked on while listening to the song on repeat: it was a painting of a man who had an aura around him that showed he was supposed to be a hero, but there were still little details in the painting that implied that the hero had some inner demons of his own. Between the moment where he sent his painting to the museum and time he finished painting, he always had daydream of the hero coming to life. The hero would gently hold his hands with a soft gaze in his eyes and a smile on his face that just said to him that everything would be okay. Not only that, but his surroundings would resemble the burst of a thousand suns rather than the darkness he had grown accustomed to. Once the daydream ends for Virgil, sadness fills his heart.

As he sent the painting to the museum, Virgil felt so compelled to follow the mail carrier just so he could feel close to bringing that daydream to life, but his own health kept him from taking another step. He knew that he would, someday, take baby steps to ease his anxiety, but, until then, he couldn't help but smile at the idea that his hero was out there helping those who needed him.